#rightontarget

This upcoming summer, both of us (Kathryn and Allyson) are participating in internships at Porter Novelli, a global public relations firm known for its extensive work in social media. We will not be in the same office this summer, for I will be in New York City and Allyson will be in Washington D.C., but we will be sharing a lot of company procedures and tools along the way.

One tool we are most excited to learn about is called TrendingTarget. This was created by Porter Novelli to help gather information about what audiences care the most about in real-time. Using keywords from tweets and hash-tags,  TrendingTarget shows popular topics that people are tweeting about. This tool helps Porter Novelli get into their clients minds and further understand their wants and needs.

Porter Novelli has even made a video about this tool, describing it in more detail.
Click HERE to watch it!

As budding public relations practitioners, we hope to get experience using this tool first-hand this summer. We believe that TrendingTarget has the potential to become a leading analytic tool in social media marketing. Not only does it give you visuals of the statistics, but it also helps organize the actual tweets creating them.
This is only the beginning stage of TrendingTarget, but with time and revisions, it could become something used across the public relations spectrum.

What are your thoughts on TrendingTarget?




Until next time, sweet tweets!

-Kathryn and Allyson-

Here, content! Good, content!

Greetings content maniacs, from Zach and Austin! 

Today we will discuss pirates, ninjas and puppies. Not really, but now that we have your attention, let’s talk about “good” content… and how to get it.

It’s true that if you pack a website or blog with keywords, it will increase your SEO but that doesn’t necessarily mean that your content is any good. So once you get them to your site, how do you keep them there? Here is what we’ve learned about creating good content.

Good content has to be created, crafted even. You can’t just “write”. Your readers want to be engaged. So engage them! 

• Write about things that are relevant- make sure you don’t have gobs of information on your site that has nothing to do with your site.
• Write with passion and conviction- write what you love to write about because you love to write about it. There’s no way it won’t be interesting.
• Write with structure and proper grammar- We cannot stress this enough! If you write well and with detail, there will be no doubt that your writing will be understood.
•  Write with accuracy- Make sure you are not giving false information. Take a little extra time to do the research. You won’t regret it. And readers will appreciate it.
• Add photos! Blogs and pictures go together like peanut butter and bananas. (Hey, if Elvis said its OK, its OK.)  Allow readers to become further engaged, a (relevant) photo gives that little something extra that they sometimes need to get through the post.

These are just a few things that we’ve learned about “good” content. Zach and I (Austin Wildmann) look forward to continuing this adventure with you into the magical world of content. Join us next week, when we will examine BAD content!!! *bloodcurdling scream*

- Austin and Zach

Austin Wildmann (left)

&

Zachary Peacock (right)

Hash-tagging for #dummies

This week, we will take you on a journey through the wonderful world of hash-tagging. But, what is a hash-tag, you say? 

A hash-tag is the number (#) symbol used to in front of or within a social media post in order to mark keywords or topics in a tweet. They help your tweets stand out according to their content so people can readily search for different topics and products. When you click on a hash-tag, you can see all other tweets about the same topic. For business professionals, this can be an effective tool to generate buzz and bring in potential customers by making a # for a company name or specific product. 

Once a hash-tag becomes popular, it can land on the Trending Topics list. This is a list that Twitter uses to show what people are tweeting about worldwide, within a country, state or even city. Trending Topics can be seen on every Twitter homepage. 

Don't miss our post next week: #140charactersorless
- Allyson & Kathryn